NFT Innovation Digest #31

Cover Art: Tiger by Victoria L

Most innovative (author's pick)

ERC721R is a new NFT standard that adds trustless refunds to NFT smart contracts, allowing minters to return the NFTs minted at a cost within a given refund period.

More:

• The standard can prevent rug pulls by allowing a 30 days period to request a refund after minting if the creators don't deliver as promised;
• Projects such as Exodia Analytics, Curious Addys’ Trading Club, and CryptoFighters Alliance are already offering trustless refunds through the standard.

Most discussed

Coinbase announced the beta version of its NFT marketplace. The platform has social engagement features that allow users to create online profiles, follow other profiles, comment on artworks and monitor a personalized feed to discover new NFTs based on engagement and purchases.

More:

• The waitlist for the marketplace has more than 8.4 million email addresses, which will gradually gain access to the platform;
• The Coinbase NFT marketplace will resemble a cross between OpenSea and social media platforms.

PROOF Collective’s NFT drop Moonbirds launched on April 16 and reached over 90k ETH ($280M) in total sales volume. Moonbirds is an Ethereum collection of 10k profile picture NFTs.

More:

• PROOF Collective released 7,875 of the NFTs for sale via an allowlist, with each NFT sold for 2.5 ETH. Another 2,000 NFTs were granted as free mints to holders of the PROOF Collective NFT membership pass (each holder could mint two Moonbirds);
• PROOF Collective is an NFT-driven membership club created by Kevin Rose, partner at True Ventures, tech entrepreneur, and co-founder of Digg and Revision3.

Mainstream adoption

Louis Vuitton released new NFTs for its mobile app game "Louis: The Game". The game was first introduced in August 2021. The company added new quests and new NFT rewards in the app.

More:

• In the game, players can enter a world, dress up their avatar and run around collecting postcards that teach them about the brand's history;
• Players who collect a certain amount of free NFTs in the game will have the chance to qualify for an NFT raffle, which runs until August 4.

Hyundai announced a collaboration with the Meta Kongz NFT brand as part of its strategy to step into the NFT space. 30 limited edition “Hyundai x Meta Kongz” NFTs went on sale on April 20.

More:

• “Hyundai NFT projects will be continued throughout the year to keep expanding the Hyundai NFT Universe. Profits from the sale of Hyundai NFTs will be used for the project’s management and community members.” said Thomas Schemera, Hyundai Motor’s Global Chief Marketing Officer.

New products and ideas

NBA announced NBAxNFT as "the official Web3 home for the NBA". The platform will introduce basketball NFTs, gaming, Metaverse, and Web3 projects.

More:

• Following the announcement, NBA launched The Association NFT, a collection of dynamic NFTs that can change in appearance over time based on team and player performance.
• There will be 18k NFTs from The Association for the 2022 NBA Playoffs, 75 NFTs for each of the 240 players.

Move-to-Earn games such as STEPN and Genopets are gaining popularity this year. These games consist of blockchain-based move-to-earn games that promote health and fitness by rewarding users for participating in physical activities.

More:

• The most popular company in the sector is STEPN, a Solana-based game that lets users purchase NFT sneakers to start playing. The game's app tracks the users' movement through the GPS on their mobile phones and rewards them with in-app tokens called Green Satoshi Tokens (GSTs). These tokens can be traded for USDC or SOL.

Recommended reading

• The financialization of Non-Fungible Tokens: This issue by 0xRusowsky explores the landscape of the NFT Finance space, compares different protocols in the sector and provides insights on the next steps for the sector;
• Reshaping & Innovating the Music Industry Through NFTs: This NFT Plazas article explains how NFT technology is bringing value to the music industry while allowing fans and artists to have a deeper connection.

New podcasts and shows

• The Scoop: In this episode, Frank talks to Raj Dhamodharan, global head of crypto at Mastercard. Raj shares the progress the payments company has made since entering the crypto industry, and how the move is a natural extension of Mastercard’s core business;
• Bankless: In this episode, David and Ryan interview Kevin Rose, the founder of PROOF Collective and Moonbirds. Kevin explains the role of PROOF and his plans for Moonbirds, one of the most successful NFT launches of 2022;
• The Delphi Podcast: In this episode, Tom talks to Aaron McDonald, co-founder of ASM, and Brooks Brown, co-founder of NOR, about the role of artificial intelligence in gaming. The discussion covers the benefits owning an AI, community governance within games, normalizing NFTs and the financialization of games.

Save the date

• 20th - 23rd June: NFT NYC is the leading annual NFT event, don't miss it!

NFT space in numbers

The values below are from 16th - 22nd April 2022. Source: DappRadar.

Top Marketplaces

Top Sales

Top Collections

*Most of the sales in the collection occurred on the LooksRare marketplace and may be the subject of wash trading.